So why is Antarctica is not warming
as much as other continents, and why are there more droughts in southern
Australia? According to new Antarctic ice core research published in Nature
Climate Change, rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are
intensifying the Southern Ocean winds, which are known to deliver rain to
southern Australia, but instead they are pushing them further south towards
Antarctica.

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British Antarctic Survey's Dr.
Robert Mulvaney, and co-author of the study says: "The strengthening of these
westerly winds helps us to explain why large parts of the Antarctic continent
are not yet showing evidence of climate warming."

Lead researcher Nerilie Abram, from
the Australian National University, said: "With greenhouse warming, Antarctica
is actually stealing more of Australia's rainfall. Itâ€™s not good news â€“ as
greenhouse gases continue to rise weâ€™ll get fewer storms chased up into
Australia."

"As the westerly winds are getting
tighter they're actually trapping more of the cold air over Antarctica," Abram
said. "This is why Antarctica has bucked the trend. Every other continent is
warming, and the Arctic is warming fastest of anywhere on earth."

While most of Antarctica is
remaining cold, rapid increases in summer ice melt, glacier retreat and ice
shelf collapses are being observed along the Antarctic Peninsula, where the
stronger winds passing through Drake Passage are making the climate warm
exceptionally quickly.

Until this study climate
observations of the westerly winds were available only from the middle of the
last century.

Dr. Abrams research has chronicled
the westerly winds with data from tree rings and lakes in South America and now
by analyzing ice cores from Antarctica.
Dr. Abram and her colleagues have been able to extend the history of the
westerly winds back over the last millennium.

She notes that, "The Southern Ocean
winds are now stronger than at any other time in the past 1,000 years."